ITCSA stands for ‘Indian Telugu Civil Servants Association’. It is the informal group of Civil Servants hailing from Andhra Pradesh & Telangana working in different parts of India and abroad. The idea was conceived on 9th November, 2006 by Telugu Civil Servants of 80 Foundation Course (LABASNAA, Mussorie). The association uses web-based Google Group named ‘ITCSA’ as the major platform for interaction among members. Aspirants can interact with ITCSA members through itcsa2006@gmail.com

Thursday, February 13, 2014

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUT INDIA

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUTINDIA

This is a compilation of random facts about India.

1. Navi (new) Mumbai, a planned satellite township of Mumbai, wasdeveloped in 1972 and is the largest planned township on the planet.

2. In 2004, 200 women took law in their own hands and came to the court armed with vegetable knives and chilli powder and murdered onthe court floor,a serial rapist. Then every woman claimed responsibility for the murder.

3. Nearly 10,000 crore of rupees were spent and 800 soldiers died in the war mobilization effort after the parliament attack. Reportedly,over 100 children died and many farmers lost their livelihoods due toheavy mining in the border areas.

4. War of 27 years fought between the Maratha Empire and the Mughal Empire from 1681 to 1707, was the longest recorded military engagementin the history of India.

5. In 1955, Jawaharlal Nehru rejected an offer to India for apermanent UN Security Council seat to avoid being embroiled in the cold war politics.

6. Viswanathan Anand is first player in chess history to have won theWorld Championship in three different formats: knockout, tournament,and match.

7. India is one of only 3 remaining countries in the world to have a horsed cavalry regiment.

8. Agni III is the most accurate missile in the world in its rangecategory and BrahMos is the fastest operational cruise missile in theworld.

9. The process of crystallization of sugar from sugarcane juice was discovered in India in the Gupta period (350 AD).

10. Many tribes in India worship Asura and Ravan and consider VijayaDashami and Dussehra to be black days.

11. In 1928, when the Indian Hockey team was on its way to Amsterdam, they played a series of exhibition matches in England. Seeing itscalibre, England decided not to field a team for the Olympicsas “they did not want to lose to a slave country.”

12. Lonar Lake, a saltwater lake in Maharashtra, was created by ameteor hitting the Earth and is one of its kind in India.

13. Raj Kapoor’s 1951 film Awaara was massively popular in SovietRussia and China. The film and its title song were Mao Zedong’s(Founder of People’s Republic of China) favorite.

14. There were two US navy warships called USS Krishna and USS Indrathat served during World War II.

16. English Actor, Sir Ben Kingsley’s birth name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji and he is of Gujarati descent.

17. Freddie Mercury, British musician, was actually of Gujarati descent.

18. “John Doe” orders (restraint orders against unknown persons forbreach of plaintiff’s rights) are called “Ashok Kumar” orders in India. Likewise, “unclaimed” or “unidentified” dead body found in apublic place is called is Ashok Kumar.

19. The oldest building in Asia is in India, the Sanchi Stupa.

20. Bal Thackeray’s father changed his family name from Thakre to Thackeray after the British writer William Makepeace Thackeray.

21. There is a species of Shark known as the Ganges Shark thatinhabits River Ganga and it is critically endangered

22. The first railroad was constructed by two Indians: Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Jaganath Shunkerseth) and not the British.

23. Tamil is an OVS (object-verb-subject) language, a characteristicit shares with Klingon (a fictional language spoken by a race in StartTrek Series).

24. Mount Kailash has never been climbed, in spite ofChinese government’s support to the climbers.

42. After United States, India has the largest number of English speakers.

43. During the battle of Rezang La in the 1962 India-Sino war abattalion called 13 Kumaon Regiment consisting of mere 120 soldiers, held off 6000 Chinese with heavy artillery killing 1300 of their soldiers.

44. Bangalored is a word in Oxford dictionary, which came up afterheavy outsourcing to India took the world by storm.

45. One of the oldest College of Engineering in the world is in Chennai, College of Engineering (Guindy).

46. There is a village in Assam called Jatinga where ,over the last100 years, thousands of birds have flown to their death over a smallstrip of land.

48. The average cost of census taking in India is $0.5 per person(US: $39, World Average: $4.6).

49. Frozen bank accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi were unexpectedlyreleased by India’s law ministry in 2006, apparently without the consent of the CBI which had asked for them to be frozen.

50. India Post allows you to order personalized stamps with yourpicture on them.

"She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has theright to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizingand symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinesesea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!"(Sylvia Levi - French Scholar)